Bliss
by stexgirl2000
Summary: An alien language creates problems for Hoshi and Frustrates Malcolm


Title: Bliss Author: Stexgirl2000 Email: stexgirl2000@yahoo.com Disclaimers: I don't own them, I get no money for them, and nothing that is Star Trek or Enterprise belongs to me. (Darn it!) Rating: R (for sexual situations and bad language) Category: Romance Codes: S/R, with a bit of A, T'P, Tu, M. Spoilers: None Summary: Alien language poses a problem for Hoshi, frustrates Malcolm. Archive: Permission granted to LD and Lumi, anyone else, please ask first.  
  
Bliss  
  
Follow your bliss. God she hated that quote -- it had been over used during the past 100 plus years.  
  
Hoshi never liked reading Campbell, she thought his writing and the old pieces of his interviews to be too self-congratulating. Now, she was faced with translating a language that intrinsically seemed to have the notion at its core. It made her head hurt. She wished, for the umpteenth time, that the Enterprise had never run into the Ca'al.  
  
The Ca'al met the Vulcans 150 years ago. The Vulcans were less impressed with the Ca'al than they seemed to be of humans. They gathered information on Ca'al culture and language, signed a trade treaty and pretty much had left the Ca'al to themselves.  
  
The Ca'al had warp engines, but they traveled haphazardly. The Ca'al were sensualists that put most other species to shame, except for maybe the Deltans -- and humans had only heard rumors of them. The Ca'al were artists, but their attitude towards art was not indifferent, but casual. The Ca'al were interested in science, but only if it lead to something stimulating. The Ca'al had nine hundred different words to describe bliss. It would have been easier if they had nine hundred different words for something simple -- like snow or stars.  
  
When they came across the Ca'al ship, they established communication in Vulcan. The Ca'al captain, a voluptuous cobalt-blue woman named Caasti, insisted that before she introduced them to her home planet, they needed to learn Ca'al fluently. Seven days had past since then.  
  
She knew Jon was losing patience. He was being calm and supportive, but Hoshi knew from the look in his eyes and body language he wanted the Enterprise to be on its way. For the past three days they had the same conversation at the beginning of her shift.  
  
"How's it going Hoshi? Have you made more progress yet?" Jon would have a hopeful expression on his face. The rest of the bridge crew would look at her in rapt expectation. Everyone, except T'Pol. Hoshi could swear T'Pol had begun to look at Hoshi with a bit of empathy --or was it pity? -- flashing across her eyes. As if they were now comrades in arms in appeasing the Captain's unquenchable need for first contact.  
  
"I've made more progress Captain, however there's more to input into the UT and I've run across some problems translating a certain syntax.... understanding this verb form... translating these adjectives..." She'd say some variation and then Jon would have her go and work on it some more.  
  
Jon trusted her to figure this out and she would not let him down.  
  
Thus, the Ca'al language was with her morning, noon, and night. She had fifteen PADDs of the Ca'al data and they were with her all the time. By the second day, Malcolm gave her pack for her to carry all of them, with slots for each PADD and labeled.  
  
Hoshi would call over to the Ca'al ship at random times during the ship's "day" and ask questions in Vulcan. After her fifth consult, Hoshi concluded that the logical language of the Vulcans was not the best Rosetta stone for the Ca'al's language. There were over seven hundred different words for sexual acts in Ca'al. No wonder the Vulcans had left them alone.  
  
The worst part of it all wasn't that the language was giving her headaches, it was she hadn't been with Malcolm in all of eight days. The day before they'd run across the Ca'al, he'd been busy testing new upgrades to the ships weapons systems and deep into finishing the armory's interdepartmental reviews. They planned to celebrate the next night.  
  
Hoshi planned some very interesting ways to celebrate. Then fate decided to make her frustrated, professionally and personally. By day five, Malcolm indicated, discreetly over dinner, that cold showers and masturbation were no substitute for her in his bed. Before Hoshi could suggest leaving dinner for a quick rendezvous in her quarters, Trip and Travis came over and joined them.  
  
"So Hoshi, I hear that the Ca'al language is kickin' your a...brain awfully hard. Aren't the Vulcan's data helpin' any?" She knew in his way, Trip was trying to be helpful, trying to make conversation, but she wanted to kill him at that moment.  
  
Travis jumped in with, "From what T'Pol had told the Captain, the Ca'al language is very complex. The Ca'al learned Vulcan but the Vulcans never really learned Ca'al. But she wouldn't elaborate on why."  
  
The two men continued to chatter unabated. The look in Malcolm's eyes told her he was ready, willing and able to shoot them both and blow up the damned Ca'al ship.  
  
The rest of dinner was more of the same. As they mused about the sexual practices of the voluptuous aliens, Hoshi sighed. There was no way in hell she was going to share with Trip and Travis the fact that there were over seven hundred words for sex in Ca'al.  
  
Never.  
  
At the end of dinner Hoshi comforted herself with the fact that at the very least, she and Malcolm were suffering together.  
  
It was now somewhere in the range of 0130 in the morning and Hoshi felt her mind flailing around in a sea of Ca'al grammar. She decided coffee and some chocolate might be a good distraction to clear her head.  
  
Making her way to the mess hall, Hoshi idly wondered if Malcolm was awake. A smile came to her face as she mused that if he was, he'd either be in the gym or the armory, working out his frustrations.  
  
Going into the mess hall, she proven wrong.  
  
"Bloody! Fucking! Hell! God damn rotting mother-fucker..." A familiar voice was ranting in the galley.  
  
Hoshi held back her laughter. She loved the way Malcolm could curse; he'd start off slow and work his way into more and more inventive expletives.  
  
"Malcolm, what's wrong?" she called out.  
  
A shorts and tee-shirt clad Malcolm Reed, hair spiked out and face flushed with anger came out of the galley. Hoshi's deeply buried arousal flared up.  
  
"Hoshi! Chef hid the canned pineapple, that rotten fucking bugger..."  
  
Malcolm stopped himself as he registered she was wearing her black silk robe and the ruby red silk night shirt he'd given to her, was peeking through. He wanted her now--nine days was long enough.  
  
In four quick strides he took her in his arms and was kissing her with deep abandon.  
  
A less frustrated, less tired Hoshi would have broken the embrace off, insisted they quickly go to one of their quarters. The uber-horny Hoshi who was being kissed and caressed by the man she loved gasped out, "Here! Now! Hard!"  
  
A less frustrated, less lonely Malcolm would have stopped and told Hoshi to go to her quarters and he'd wait three minutes before following her. The madly aroused Malcolm picked her up and carried her into the Captain's private dining area.  
  
He laid her on the table, one hand simultaneously undoing her robe and pushing up the ruby silk, the other pushing down his shorts. Hoshi leaned slightly up and pulled him closer, her hands going under his shirt to fondle his skin.  
  
They dispensed with foreplay. What they wanted was to be joined in the release of their bottled up desires. Malcolm plunged into her and she immediately matched his rhythmic thrusts.  
  
Furiously they moved, hands roaming, lips and tongues going from mouths to neck, to shoulders, and back to mouths.  
  
Shuddering together in sharp climax, Hoshi felt that the edge had been taken off. Satisfied, but not yet sated.  
  
Malcolm collapsed against her, and eased some of his weight off of her by propping himself up on his forearms.  
  
"God that was blissfully wicked. I've missed you Hoshi."  
  
He nuzzled her neck and Hoshi sighed.  
  
"Oh, hell, I am never going to able to eat in here again with a straight face, Malcolm."  
  
The wild, devil may care grin that was so rare appeared on Malcolm's face as he said, "I don't think you really mind. I know I don't."  
  
She laughed, smacked his shoulder and kissed him.  
  
"We do need to get out of here before we're discovered. We're not the only insomniacs on this ship."  
  
"True, but even if we're caught, it was worth it."  
  
They got up, adjusted their clothing, and made sure there was no evidence left behind. Hoshi listened at the door, and hearing no sounds, they went out and back into the galley.  
  
They were half way to the mess hall's main door when it opened to reveal Jon Archer, in sweats, looking wan and stressed.  
  
"Hoshi, Malcolm, couldn't sleep?"  
  
Both of them were determined not to panic.  
  
"Yes, sir," Malcolm replied. "Ensign Sato and I met on the way in, looking for a late night snack. Unfortunately, we didn't find anything that appealed to us in the way of leftovers."  
  
Hoshi was impressed--Malcolm didn't have a hint of a blush.  
  
Malcolm was impressed--Hoshi didn't dissolve in a fit of giggles.  
  
"Well, carry on then. Try to get some sleep."  
  
"Goodnight, sir."  
  
"Goodnight, captain."  
  
They went out, making sure they didn't breakout in laughter until they were very far away from the mess hall.  
  
After their laughter had subsided, Malcolm looked at Hoshi with renewed desire.  
  
"Come back to my quarters with me, Hoshi luv." He let his fingers trail down the side of her face.  
  
"I need to work on the translating the Ca'al..."  
  
He cut her off. "Bugger the damned Ca'al! One night isn't going to matter. I need you."  
  
His blue eyes glowed intently and his gaze wouldn't let her break away.  
  
Hoshi realized she needed him too, and she missed him terribly.  
  
"Let's go," she said simply.  
  
At 0400 in the morning, Hoshi watched Malcolm sleeping. When they had gotten to his quarters, they made love slowly, leisurely, taking care to make their foreplay the main focus this time. They made sure they murmured to each other, their passions moving like a tide, rushing in, flowing out. As she mused upon what they had experienced together, Ca'al words and phrases began to sinuously flow through her mind. With shock, Hoshi realized that she was thinking in Ca'al.  
  
"Malcolm," she shook him urgently, "Malcolm, wake up! Oh my god, I've got my Rosetta stone, I've figured it out!"  
  
Malcolm snapped awake, saying "What? You figured out Ca'al? How?"  
  
Hoshi leaned over and gave him a deep kiss. "Let's just say we personified over one hundred different words the Ca'al use for sex."  
  
"Really?" A roguish smile lit his face.  
  
"Want to try for another hundred?" Lightning fast he had her underneath him and Hoshi never got the chance to answer his question.  
  
When she arrived on shift, Hoshi didn't let Jon ask his usual question. She simply said, "Captain, I'm ready to hail the Ca'al in their own language. After that, I can finish programming the UT in Ca'al.  
  
Jon smiled in relief and pride, T'Pol raised an eyebrow, and the rest of bridge crew, led by Trip and Travis, gave her a little cheer.  
  
The Ca'al captain was impressed, if not a bit surprised. She had begun to doubt the humans would ever figure out her people's language. She liked the fact that the humans were stubborn and it counted for something. Caasti was intrigued enough by them to decide that even if they didn't figure out how to speak Ca'al, she'd escort them home anyway and stick to Vulcan for diplomatic purposes. Once Hoshi hailed her, Caasti was glad she'd waited.  
  
Afterwards, Captain Caasti shuttled over to the Enterprise with her sub- captains to begin to formal diplomatic exchanges with the humans. After briefing the Enterprise officers about protocol and security, and given the Enterprise the coordinates to Ca'al, Hoshi and Malcolm escorted Caasti and her people back to their shuttle. Before leaving she asked to speak to Hoshi privately.  
  
"Usually, Ensign Sato, most species we encounter give up on trying to learn our language. They find our language to complex and frankly, too sexual for their sensibilities. Often they lack the key to understand us. Tell me, what was the key for you?"  
  
Hoshi glanced quickly over to Malcolm, waiting patiently by the door to the shuttle bay. She turned and smiled warmly at the Ca'al captain.  
  
"Well, Captain Caasti, it was just a matter of following my bliss." 


End file.
